Keeping your hand in play

Digby has a good recent post supporting NARAL in its single-issue activism, despite recent criticism (see here) that its endorsements may undermine its interests in the long run, as by keeping a generally anti-choice party in power. Digby counters that interest groups that "play along" with a generally sympathetic party end up being taken for granted, and thus losing any power to keep their interests on the agenda.

[quoting Brad Plumer] Parties always pander towards groups that are in danger of defecting; they know they can screw over the loyal core somewhat, so long as there are no consequences. Unless NARAL shows that there are consequences, such as endorsing a pro-choice Republican in a blue state, they'll get taken for granted. Maybe that's due to sexism on the part of the Democratic leadership, but mostly it's just the way coalitions work.

[back to Digby] I understand that we all need to stick together, but if I were NARAL I'd be getting very, very concerned about some Democrats' willingness to "soften" their stance on the issue of choice because it's allegedly hurting the party --- you know, moral values and all that. I might just think it's smart to show some muscle. There is no way I'd blindly trust anyone in this environment to fight this battle for me.

I'll admit, there's increasing willingness among Democrats to support pro-life candidates if they seem "the most electable." It's easy to support that strategy in individual cases (as in my own state of PA, where getting rid of Santorum is a huge concern), but it might not be the best place to make compromises -- letting up on gun control, for example, has even more appeal in "red states" out west and could be a better place to change positions. (In fact, Digby thinks that the NRA is a good example to look at for how sticking to principle has in fact ended up giving a group big weight within a party that they didn't mindlessly support.) There just seems to be a quickness to let women's issues slide in these discussions . . . Fight on!

Skin deep

It's becoming increasingly clear that flag-waving America-shouting folks often show a different side when it comes to the idea of making any sacrifice themselves for their country or its undertakings.

"Military service isn't for our son. It isn't for our kind of people," she told him.

Well, I guess you've made yourself pretty clear *now*.

(via Armando and Atrios)

Update: Pilecki at the Huffington Post was a bit struck by this same quote.

Update 2: and Tom Tomorrow, an emailer is even more eloquent.

Baby steps

The standard treatment for HIV is retrovirals, which help block additional replication of the virus but do nothing about the cells that are already infected but lying dormant. Thus, it's a lifetime regimen, and scientists are eager to find ways to target the dormant infected cells (and thence get rid of the infection for good). Apparently they've found the first drug that could be effective in this way:

The study, led by Dr. David Margolis at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tested the ability of valproic acid to reduce the number of infected dormant cells. Four patients on standard therapy were given the pills to take twice daily for three months. The size of this pool of infected dormant cells decreased by 75 percent in three out of the four patients, the study found.

Not a cure, but a proof of principle, and amazingly quick effects (compared to the years of retrovirals). Check out Eliot's further discussions of this drug, which is used as an anticonvulsant and antidepressant -- there may already be a host of fortuitous "test subjects" out there who could be re-examined in light of the new findings.

(via Follow Me Here)

In (some of) your own words

Mudslingers sometimes make a trade of mangling quotes from their targets so as to distort the intended meaning. Rather than stew in the outrage, Paul Begala, who was spanked by some deliberate misinterpretation of pronouns (see story here), decided to find the humorous center of the turd-pop by setting up a contest for Most Inexcusable Misquote. The winner and runners-up are delightful scramblings of quotes and intent of famous speakers...

Abraham Lincoln: I Hate America
Illinois Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln revealed yesterday that he loathes his country. Describing the nation as a "house divided," Lincoln admitted that he "cannot stand" the United States
Duncan Stevens

Very funny (in that slightly painful Orwellian way that's becoming increasingly familiar) . . .

(via XOverboard)

Hanging with the right crowd

I'm not up on all the ups and downs of organized labor in this country, but I must say it looks like bad news when your employer can dictate whom you hang out with outside of work . . . (just for Big Brother reasons, even before you get to infringement of the right to organize)

hah!

Dooce meets someone that's never heard of a blogger, and comes up with just the right way to avoid ruining that for them . . .
If only I could think so quickly on my feet!

The face of public grief?

Another astute observation by BagNewsNotes about an image from Time Magazine that seems to capture the increasing national dismay at the course of the Iraq war -- not faces of those who've lost loved ones, but of other folk drawn to a memorial service. As ever, a thought-provoking analysis.

Completely hypothetical

So, imagine that you have two 12-year-old cats, who are friendly but generally prefer a good loll on the couch to any sort of string-chasing-type action. And then imagine that you add to the household a 3-month-old kitten, who almost never holds still, pouncing on any piece of lint or moving object of whatever size, and crawling in, behind, or over anything in the environment. You could be forgiven, I think, for suspecting that these are members of completely different species. You might also reasonably speculate that, even if the latter settles down after a year, they may continue to be more different than alike.

So then you might find yourself musing about whether four cats was indeed a completely ludicrous number that would automatically qualify your household as Crazy Cat People. Or whether it might be best for all concerned that you consider a youthful playmate for the current kitten, say, um, something along these lines... Just hypothetically speaking, of course.

Quote for the day

In a pond koi can reach lengths of eighteen inches. Amazingly, when placed in a lake, koi can grow to three feet long. The metaphor is obvious. You are limited by how you see the world.

-Vince Poscente,
Olympian (1961- )

(via A.W.A.D.)

Thursday kitten pics

More action shots, because, well, she's always in action...
(preferably being entertained by her human companions)


Every game improves if played from a perch!


Pixel discovers the joy of rolling on what you're reading...
(look at that pink tummy!!)

Another good one from the Onion

In the general category of semi-funny insights into deeper truths, this week's Onion headline story is Bush Vows to Eliminate U.S. Dependence on Oil by 4920.

"Our mission is clear," Bush said in a speech delivered at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. "We must free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels within 85 generations. A cleaner, safer America is my vision. And it is our great, great—great-times-80 grandchildren who will realize that vision."

Sigh. There's also a photo with the caption "Above: U.S. soldiers prepare to withdraw from Iraq in the unfathomably distant future."

Injecting a little levity

Guerilla artist Bansky has taken on the security wall in the West Bank, decorating it with everything from spoof ladders to fake windows looking out onto scenes of luxurious countryside. Soldiers appear not to have been amused...

For previous tales of Banksy's strikes, see this (sneaking his own paintings onto the walls in the British museum) or this (various escapades documented on his website).

(via Rebecca's Pocket)

Brits increasing citizen surveillance?

Wired reports that the U.K. is experimenting with new automobile license plates with embedded microchips that broadcast their identity hundreds of feet around and to make it possible to track the movements of individual cars.

Proponents argue that making such RFID tags mandatory and ubiquitous is a logical move to counter the threat of terrorists using the roadways, and that it will scoop up insurance and registration scofflaws in the process.

Already, electronic toll-passes in the U.S. are being used for other purposes (as for monitoring traffic flow on highways), so there's no telling what uses law enforcement (or private sector geniuses) could come up with for this kind of data.

Civil libertarians don't object to an RFID automatic toll-collection system that "anonymizes" vehicles in databases once a transaction is completed. But they doubt the government -- given its thirst for intelligence -- will use such privacy-protection measures. From a law-enforcement perspective, "there is no reason to have privacy for anything," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Unnerving. Luckily, these are unlikely to jump the pond soon, because they cost 10x more than regular plates, which would probably cause nationwide outrage more quickly than the privacy concerns . . .

(via Follow Me Here)

Youth in politics

Today a local Philly politician blogged in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and asked, in essence, how we can get young people reconnected with the political process. As if in answer, Charlie on MyDD tells the tale of the recent convention of Young Democrats of America, traditionally an organization of folks more concerned with making connections to advance their careers than in any set of issues or actions -- this year reform-minded progressives took over the organization and reset its goals. They hope to get behind the campaigns of 1000 progressive candidates in the next two years, and to support a number of progressive actions:

At the convention, the dominoes fell in favor of those who would like to see the YDA take a bolder progressive stance, and put action behind it. Single-payer healthcare, withdrawal from Iraq, immigrant rights, and improved union organizing rights all made it into the new YDA platform. And the Action Caucus resolution passed unanimously, both in committee and on the floor of the convention.

Only time will see whether this organization can re-invent itself and re-energize young voters, but every bit helps.

The value of enigma

Also at Bag News, a study of images of John Roberts and what they convey...

(See more pointed ruminations about Roberts at dailyKos here and here.)

Notable silence

This past weekend marked the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and I found the handful of stories and memorializations in the paper almost too much to take, even skimming. But it hasn't gotten much noise, despite the round number (60 years) and the huge turn-out for the memorial on the memorial site in Japan. The incomparable BagNewsNotes as a great image from a temporary New York memorial that's worth a visit. Also, I'm reminded of my own trip to Japan a decade ago, and the stop in Hiroshima is captured in an old archive here. I can still recall that wall of letters from Hiroshima mayors to the nuclear powers of the world...

A first victory against overuse of antibiotics

Somehow I missed the original announcement, but at the end of July the FDA announced a ban on a poultry antibiotic, Baytril, which is related to the human drug Cipro and has been implicated in increasing bacterial drug-resistance. Yay!!

Margaret Mellon, director of food and environment at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the FDA's move was ''a big deal.''

''It's the first time FDA has withdrawn a veterinary drug on the basis of antibiotic resistance concerns, fearing that use of the drug in animals is going to erode the effectiveness of the drugs in human medicine,'' she said.

Indeed, this drug as a feed supplement does nothing for the health of the chickens, but puts a constant selective pressure on their natural gut bacteria, resulting in mutations which could make critical classes of human drugs ineffective. Now if we could just get moving to stop similar abuses in feeding of hooved livestock...

(via Mike the Mad Biologist)

Right, it's all about the economics

A group of "Minutemen" show up to demonstrate against the hiring of immigrant workers, and seem strangely unbothered when they are joined by a bunch of neo-Nazis waving swastika flags . . .

(via Bitch, Ph.D.)

Firing a warning shot?

Arlen Specter confounds his critics (and supporters) again by writing a letter to Supreme Court nominee Roberts suggesting that he should expect pointed questions about specific cases and the boundaries of the rights of the legislature. The Commerce Clause is not as sexy as Roe, but perhaps more pressing to Senators, at least, and a recent source of wider concern.

In a three-page letter to Judge Roberts, Mr. Specter raises pointed questions about two recent court decisions invalidating legislation Congress passed under its authority to regulate interstate commerce. That power has for decades been used to produce expansive legislation, including environmental protections, civil rights laws and the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The current court has been trimming back the authority, however, and Democrats have vowed to make interstate commerce a big issue in the Roberts hearings. Now Mr. Specter, a Republican who is widely regarded as the panel's sharpest constitutional lawyer, is suggesting that he shares the Democrats' concerns.

Apparently some lawmakers have taken offense at Rehnquist's, in particular, dismissiveness of their deliberations.

(via Armando at dailyKos)

Making it trendy to keep yourself well

Two interesing brief stories lately about designers making allowances for the way that ugly medical aides lead to resistant users (and spiffy devices might be more happily welcomed):

1. Hearware: attempting to do for hearing aides what the last few decades have done for eyeglasses -- style!! (and working with other sound-control devices too)
   (via boing boing)
   
   
2. Beadin' Bangle: making medical-alert bracelets and necklaces you'd actually want to be seen in public in.
   (via knotted knickers)